After a life of plucking their bows, many Archers feel the itch to strum strings of a different kind. The Bards of Ragnarok Online are the right choice for the idealists among Archers who wish to change the world with their poetry.
The voice of a Bard is laden with magical harmonies, singing hymns that invoke the ancient Gods of Asgard to instill fear in the hearts of his enemies and inspire his comrades to victory with songs of eternal youth and glorious charges. Where their female counterparts, the Dancers, are more bent on disruption, Bards specialize in support, which make them central in all defensive strategies during the War of Emperium.
Supporting with a Bard or Dancer requires a different approach than other classes. Music-based buffs are mostly percentual values, as opposed to the absolute values of Priest buffs, and require careful strategy and positioning, but playing as an Archer should already provide some experience in this respect. Despite their supportive role, one should not forget that Bards are also capable of dealing good quantities of damage, one of their main advantages over Hunters is their immense SP pool which allows them to continually use Double Strafe instead of normal attacks, ensuring a very nice damage output.
In general, there are 2 types of skills for both Dancers and a Bards; skills which can be sung or danced without a partner of the opposite gender and those where the player needs another Bard or Dancer respectively.
Once these have been completed, the applicant will be made a bard by the Roaming Bard.
Builds
Standard Archer build:
Owls Eye 10
Vulture 10
Improved Concentration 10
Arrow Shower 9
Double Strafe 10
Bards are an interesting class due to having two "modes", support and battle. Support mode uses an Instrument to play songs with (and usually a Shield with Racial Reduction Cards for defense, while battle usually involves using a Bow. Because of this, it is generally recommended to put the primary Instrument, a Dagger (for song flashing), the primary Shield (equipping the Bow will remove the Shield), and a Bow all into easily accessible hotkeys.
Magic Strings Build
STR: 1
AGI: 1+
VIT: 60-80
INT: 70-90
DEX: 70-90
LUK: 1
Magic Strings is the defining skill of Bards, or even is still the defining skill of a Maestro, their third class form. Magic Strings is extremely useful and no other skill or equipment in this game can replace its uses; it is used very frequently for endgame purposes even on Maestros at max level. Players choosing this build will level using Double Strafe and Arrow Shower (unless they choose to level with Melody Strike).
DEX lowers the variable cast time of other players' skills while under the effect of Magic Strings, and also improves damage for any offensive skills a Bard may use. INT reduces players' cast time delay while under the effect and is also helpful for upkeeping SP. VIT is necessary for survivability / HP pool, and also provides bonuses for Song of Lutie, another useful Bard skill. AGI is optional, but does provide bonuses for Impressive Riff if a Bard chooses to acquire this skill (only affects classes using a melee weapon). Some Bards may also already have AGI from leveling as an Archer for the ASPD / FLEE.
5/5 (optional) This is the only attack that works while performing a song, so it can be useful for aiding party members with additional DPS. Some players may choose to level using this skill and an instrument/shield combo, however it is much slower than just leveling with Double Strafe and Arrow Shower.
(optional) Awesome skill for doubling incoming exp, however it is very rare to find a partner to cast this with, so unless the player is planning on leveling with a Dancer frequently, this skill is fairly pointless to get.
Arrow Shower Build
STR: 1
AGI: 1+
VIT: 60-80
INT: 40-60
DEX: 80-99
LUK: 20-40
The Archer skill Arrow Shower is only AoE accessible to a Bard, but still offers good damage even up to level 99. With HP Healing Items, this build can AoE level very effectively and quickly. This build can actually have similar or identical stats with a Magic Strings oriented build, and it is simply the equipment that differs. Double Strafe still offers very high single target damage output.
AGI Build
STR: 1
AGI: 80-99
VIT: 40-60
INT: 30-50
DEX: 80-99
LUK: 20-40
This build is generally recommended for newer players with less funds. This Bard build is specialized on single target ctrl-click killing, which uses minimal HP / SP Healing Items. Note that Double Strafe can be spammed quicker with higher AGI (and ASPD as a result) as well. Players can also use Arrow Shower to mob level if they carefully run the mobs in circles and avoid taking dmg as much as possible. In pre-renewal this was a popular melee build with weapon, but due to flee nerfs in Renewal, it is not recommended to try this.
Tactics
Dagger switching / Dagger Amping
A popular technique used among Bards to stop a song. By switching to a dagger while performing a song, the song is immediately interrupted. While this has the same effect as Amp, switching weapons can be done at any time, whereas Amp requires SP and can only be used 5 seconds after the song has started. Although it is also possible to cancel a song by equipping a Bow, changing to a Dagger has the advantage of keeping the Bard's shield equipped. Do note though, that switching to a dagger will unequip any Arrows. This does not occur when switching to a Bow.
Flashing
A tactic used to make full use of the Bard. The Bard casts a song for an instant, then dagger or bow switches to a damage or status dealing configuration to participate in combat. This works because a song's effect stays on players for about 20 seconds after a person leaves the song's AoE. One can also flash by moving around a large formation of players with a single song up.
Song flashing is somewhat complicated and can be confusing however. If a song is replayed before the 20 seconds is over, the buff does not restart. If another person receives a song buff, then the Bard cancels it at 19 seconds, the effect will only last for one more second, instead of an additional 20 seconds (to total 39 seconds). The effect will only be refreshed 20 seconds after the other person initially touches the song area of effect. So if the Bard plays the song with the person being buffed within it, then immediately cancels it, the other person will stay buffed for 20 seconds. After 20 seconds or more (21+ seconds to be safe), the Bard can play the song again to give the buff to the other person again. This is extremely hard to keep track of without external timers / resources, so sometimes Bards just permanently keep the song on. If the Bard does wish to use offensive skills while not playing the song, they can do it by feel and play the song for a couple seconds each time, and replay it when it feels about 20 seconds or more since the last time the song was played.
Eden Group Equipment is free and a great place to start for gear to use. The Bow is a good weapon and generally a good choice for a Bard due to the high ATK. A Bard does require an instrument to play songs, but any regular instrument will work for this.
It is recommended to look at the Equipment recommendations for the Third Class job to see what equipment to strive for, rather than to spend a lot of money on a piece of equipment that will not be used in the future as a third class. However, some equipment may have a high level requirement, or are transcendent only.
Weapons
After considering what requirement skills have (some skills can only be used with certain weapon types), the Weapon Search tool within the iRO Wiki DB site is very helpful. Generally, for physical classes (both melee and ranged), something with high ATK is best. For magic classes, something with high MATK is best.
There are 3 types of weapons that bards can use. Daggers, Bows and Instruments. Daggers serve a limited usefulness, a common Knife is usually carried for its use in the dagger-stopping method to cancel songs. Instruments are needed to perform the songs and duets that the bard class can do. Bows are used for killing / leveling purposes.
Class Data
Note: The iRO Bard Skill Section is very outdated. Do not be surprised if some of the skill descriptions differ from the website contents (i.e. Acoustic Rhythm), they have been contrasted with the ingame descriptions and the more up-to-date Korean website.
Deals Neutral property magic damage to all enemies within 9x9 cells around the user. (PVP only Skill)
5
Offensive
Ensemble Skills
Ensemble skills can only be performed when a Bard and Dancer are in the same party and standing beside each other. When an Ensemble skill is performed by a Bard and Dancer, the lower level of Acoustic Rhythm is performed. (i.e. when a Bard that has learned Acoustic Rhythm Lv.5 performs the skill with a Dancer that has only learned Acoustic Rhythm Lv.3, the Bard and Dancer will perform Acoutic Rhythm Lv.3)
